It’s certainly long past time that we kept on using wires like a bunch of suckers. We have cellular telephones that shoot phone calls and emoticon laden text speak through the air. We have television in high definition. We have radio in high definition, too, whatever that means. So why are we still charging our gadgets with cords? It’s the 21st century equivalent of placing a call through a piece of string and the reverberation of some old soup cans.

New company Powermat is looking to change that situation with their wireless charger technology. Their eponymous mats are a lot like the Palm Pre’s conducive power charging station: you simply lay a gadget down on top of it and it slurps up power.

But what exactly is the Powermat? It’s simply one big pad, with a solitary plug system that allows you theoretically charge any gadget, just by digging it out of your pocket and tossing it on top.

But what if your gadget doesn’t want to play nice with the Powermat? That’s probably most gadgets, so they have you cover: you can buy a Powermat Receiver sleeve for the errant phone, PSP or camera which will enable it to lock onto the mat and suck up its power, in the same time as it takes to charge up traditionally.

As you might expect, though, the Powermat is a bit pricy: it costs a cool $99.99, and for any gadget that won’t support the Powermat, you’re looking at a $40 outlay. But no one said wireless charging would be cheap before it was ubiquitous.